


your fever's gripped me again

by plathitudes



Category: The Song of the Lioness - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen, Illness, Necromancy, Thom/Roger if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plathitudes/pseuds/plathitudes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He is a force to be reckoned with; he's honed his Gift away from the suspicious eyes of the priests in the City of the Gods. He will prove them right to fear him."</p><p>Thom raises Roger from the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your fever's gripped me again

When Thom does magic - real magic, not paltry candle-lighting parlour tricks performed by ambitious hedgewitches - it's addictive, the sweet burn of a drug through his veins, purifying, cleansing, scouring everything away in a blaze of violet fire until his body is shaking.

When he ends the spell it's like dying. A sudden empty hole carves itself out in his chest; without the flood of the Gift screaming through his nerves, bent to his will by sheer determination, he's lifeless, limp, ragged and sweat-soaked, already thinking hungrily of unopened spellbooks in the library, treasure troves of knowledge that those in the City of the Gods sought to hide from him. He can hardly wait till the next chance to try something else, feel the whisper of a dead language scrape his throat and the gazes of the gods, hot and heavy, passionlessly observing this mortal who flings his Gift up to higher and higher heights, aspiring to the same power that they have.

He is a force to be reckoned with; he's honed his Gift away from the suspicious eyes of the priests in the City of the Gods. He will prove them right to fear him.

* * *

Thom hates Court. Hates it. Every eye turned on him seems to be searching for a trace of his sister, seeing her bravery in the spark of his eerie gaze (hard evidence that he is god-touched, that he is meant for _more_ than this), her temper in his caustic wit, her smile in his smirk. When Jon slips up and looks him straight in the face and inhales, sharp and fast, when a name beginning with "Ala--" slips out of George's unguarded mouth, when Myles makes some aborted movement towards him, stops in the middle of reaching out a hand - it's always there. _She's_ always there.

He can see her in the mirror, when he catalogues every line that she doesn't have, every lighter tone in his skin, every shadow under his eyes that burn like hers never do. Did. (He hasn't seen her in what feels like years; maybe she's embraced her Gift. Maybe the same fire smolders in her gaze.) In the end, even he can't deny that he is her exact copy, despite the fact that he is pale and gaunt. He sees her in every nuance of feature, every expression that is unconsciously the same, every strand of coppery hair straggling in front of his eyes. She is everywhere.

That may well be - he can do little enough to change that - but she is not him. They are different, he insists to himself, _different_ , and pours himself into his books. There is always more to learn, more to practice, more ways to refine his Gift from the clumsy tool he's convinced it still is. It's still too - too _big_ , too much at one time. Healers can slice down their Gift delicately enough to mend a single torn scrap of flesh. He can make fire rain from the sky but he can't even light a damn candle, he jeers at himself, and the maid's hands soon become sore and slippery from scraping off melted wax from every available surface. She's a frail, trembling thing; she fears him, and his strange purple fire, burning too bright for a normal Gift.

(Seeing her inhale sharply when his gaze falls on her, seeing her shudder when he speaks - it's not as satisfying as he'd thought it would be. But where's the accomplishment in making a common chit quake? She's nothing. He dismisses her within the month, and the fallen, lumpy white towers of exploded candles soon adorn the room.)

The whole palace fears him. It's exhilarating (and lonely).

* * *

When he stumbles upon the spell - that one spell, the only Spell for him anymore, the spell that sealed his fate, twisted it up and wrapped it around that of Roger of Conte's - he's pale-mouthed and dry-tongued from leftover fury. His hands tremble on the worn, smooth cover of some nameless text; he pays no attention. His hands always shiver, nowadays.

(After the Spell - after Roger - he'll sometimes gets the shakes right down to his bones, shuddering and shuddering and too cold, cold all the time, freezing though he knows that he is too hot for any mortal. He will burn up of a fever in his soul, a sickness in his magic, a final punishment from the gods, sent to humble him. It will feel like the fiery hands of Mithros himself are shaking him till his bones rattle in his skull, but he will not repent. He has done the impossible, he has defied the gods.)

That stupid girl's words run through his head on a continuous loop - words that she'd plucked right out of his brain, of worthlessness and inadequacy. They'd emerged, like small daggers, from her pretty mouth to slice at his pride - it had felt like every eye in the palace was watching his shame crest across his cheeks. Delia of Eldorne - what does she know about anything?

There are limits to even what he can do. A spirit too long kept in the Black God's Realm cannot be revived without using the spellcaster's own life-force - Thom may be mad, but he is no fool, and he has no particular wish to die so soon, with so much else to do. He keeps behind part of his Gift from the spell, wrapping it around himself like a blanket as the rest of his magic streams away in violet flames, leaving him cold and aching. He's suddenly aware of how chilly it is down here, standing in front of an open coffin in the bowels of the palace, the weight of dead kings pressing down on him. His Gift disappears into the coffin and the spell demands more. He obliges it, letting more and more power sink into the spell until he's frighteningly vulnerable, listless. He feels very tired, suddenly, and as the hard tiled floor draws nearer he sees a shape from the corner of his eye move; he looks up, slowly, and sees Duke Roger of Conte step carefully out of the tomb. The weight of his blue eyes on Thom is the last thing he feels for some time.

When he awakes, it's to the feel of cloth bunched up beneath his head, and cold floor bleeding up through his clothes. There are a pair of long legs in his line of vision; Thom blinks at them and feels nauseous, his stomach empty. When he tries to get up, his never-too-strong limbs shudder and give way. His chest feels bruised; light-headed, he stares at the unevenness of the stones set in the floor. Someone sighs, and then he is being moved to sit up, positioned like a puppet. He looks up, blearily, and King Jonathan frowns down at him.

\- No, no. Not Jon, not nearly. Jon never had that subtly cruel narrowness in his eyes, that smirking twist to his mouth. Thom eyes the man his sister killed, exhausted and furious with himself because of it, and closes his eyes finally, too tired to speak.

"I must thank you, Sir," Duke Roger says, and Thom makes a vague negatory gesture with a limp hand

"Lord Trebond," he corrects, "not 'sir'."

"Ah," murmurs Roger, sounding amused or offended or delighted, "my mistake. I am indebted to you, my lord."

"You are," Thom agrees coolly, and somehow they make it to his chambers, Thom stumbling and shoving away Roger's impersonally concerned hands, miraculously unseen by any of the hundreds of servants who occupy this godsforsaken palace. Fatigue darkens his vision, and he cannot muster the energy to think about the consequences of raising the treasonous uncle of the king, and his sister's worst enemy, from the grave. 'Damn my pride,' he thinks, right before he falls asleep on the couch to the sound of Duke Roger's mildly questioning, hateful voice.

When he wakes, he's in his bed, lying on top of the covers. His mouth is parched and his limbs feel like dead wood, dry and heavy. He coughs, opens his eyes, and the first thing his eyes land on is a beringed hand resting on his bedside table. "Good afternoon, my lord," says a smooth voice. Roger. Thom can't speak; he coughs instead, and wishes for water. Someone pressed a cool glass into his hand; he lifts himself up on one hand and drinks the whole thing. Roger tops off the glass once more and hands it to him, silent. Thom drinks that, too; it's warm and it tastes like dust. Feeling a bit more up to facing the duke, he sets the glass back on the table and, leaning back on the pillows, eyes Roger. The older man smiles pleasantly back. "You performed a miraculous feat, Lord Trebond," he says. "Are you sure you don't want to rest - "

"I've slept long enough," Thom cuts him off. "We must..." His mind isn't working right.

"I," he corrects himself, "I must take you to the king, now." Roger's smile doesn't flicker, but something in his gaze cools. "Of course," he agrees, and graciously allows Thom to grip his arm as they begin walking. Praying to every god he knows that they won't encounter any servants, they make their agonizingly slow way to the King's office.

Jonathan goes alternately pale and red with fury, but his eyes linger on Roger with something like relief. Of course. For Roger, the handsome uncle who indulged Jon like his distant father never did, it doesn’t take much more than a smile, a suitably groveling apology, to placate the king. He avoids looking at Thom's face; there’s something like fear or anger in his gaze. Probably both. Thom smiles to himself, feels his cold lips crack, tastes blood on his mouth. The king of Tortall fears him.

Thom does not see Roger again for some time. He goes back to his rooms and remains there for the better part of a week, forcing himself to choke down dry food and old water, cold and sweating and empty, empty all over. He is by turns hyperactive and exhausted; he reads books faster than he’s ever been able to before, then forgets everything. He picks up a shard of a mirror (broken in a fit of rage - he hated seeing his sister stride about the room with him) and looks at his face in it. It’s still the same burning eyes, thin pale skin clinging to the sharp bones of his face, a faint sheen of sweat overlaying everything. He searches for a difference, something tangible to mark what has changed, and finds nothing, until he pulls together the few scraps of his Gift that he has left and tries, teeth clenching and refusing to hope, to light a candle.

Wax splatters the room, flames gush out from where the candle had been and then flicker out just as quickly, but Thom is on the floor, and sees nothing but red, red, red. The crimson of his Gift.

He leaves his room as quickly as he can manage, his vision spotting with the effort of moving so fast. He arrives at Roger’s rooms and slams his shoulder against the door as hard as he can; behind him, a maid gasps quietly, then retreats.

“Roger!” he tries to shout, but his voice is hoarse and cracking, and he hits the door again. It opens after a moment, and calm blue eyes regard him.

“Lord Trebond?”

“My Gift - ” Thom rasps out, holding onto the doorjamb with fingers that still tremble. Roger smiles.

“Yes - if you’d come to see me before, I would have been able to tell you. It’s a possible side-effect... you’re exhausted.” His face pulls together in an expression approximating concern. “Come inside.”

Thom dearly wants to leave, or hit him, or undo what he’d done and leave Roger dead and staring at the floor with those damnable eyes of his. Instead, he stumbles inside the room. Roger smiles, and shuts the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written sort of a long time ago.
> 
> Thom is my favorite character from the Song of the Lioness, and this was supposed to be Roger/Thom (because really, i know i'm not the only one thinking it) but it turned out kind of not? So. I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> (Title: song lyric; "Breezeblocks" by Alt-J.)


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